Tease and Seize; A Moving Bedsit; Once more into the drink, dear friends

An arty shot taken through a hail of bubbles only feet above the greatest of barrier reeves.


So we did it: organisational hump cleared with no faults and through to the next round. There was always going to be a bit to achieve in this town:

Find a place to stay that would neither break the bank nor put either of us in a room that had more than 2 beds and hence people.

Go diving on the great barrier reef.

Find a campervan to rent to take us down to Sydney that we didn’t perform intestinal somersaults of revulsion at the sight of.

And, of course, indulge in a reunion with my good friend the boy Derek and his missus Saranne.

Cairns turned out to be, now that I’m fit to say my piece about it, writing as I am, on my shiny new 9 inch laptop in the back of the above foreshadowed camper, a serviceable port of entry but somehow a little like listowel during the races. Forgive me those of you lucky people who don’t know what I mean by that: what I’m trying to say is it all seemed a little 18th birthday party on the streets. An 18th birthday party where a couple of older cousins and uncles turned up, the ones who weren’t invited because they tend to remove the garment that covers their nethers when drunk or start/threaten to start fights. It may not be all that bad in reality, we didn’t get the full perspective that a resident of the town might but that we didn’t want to was enough for us.

Anyway yesterday, on quite choppy seas we took a large and luxurious boat to the large and equally (from a diver’s point of view - and we are them now, okay?) luxurious reef known to the world as the Great Barrier. Actually on our connecting flight from Brisbane to Cairns we could see said reef from the plane such is it’s scope. It looks from the sky like green patches of water, inviting enough but from a well equipped diving boat it looks like a water slide during a heat wave. One wants to be in it, so to speak. And in it we were as succeeding photographic evidence will attest.

Having made a couple of calls and sent a few emails we found a vehicle that could sleep us both in a non together fashion. As it stands we have double bunk beds in the van at night time which is nicely in line with our penchant for comfort. I was told on the way to collect said vehicle by Adam that we ought to review the T’s and C’s before committing. Unaccustomed as I am to the 5th Dan level ways of the force in matters Management Speak I didn’t know this was a short hand for Terms and Conditions. Imagine my disappointment when I found out there was no Tease and Seize to be reviewed. Sounded like a spicy little pursuit altogether. Ah Well.

So campervan arranged we stocked up the vehicle with a moveable feast from the Dunnes down under and so it was with a full up fridge that mere hours after waking on our last day in Cairns (annoyingly over pronounced by the locals (Caaaaaannes) said he, with monumental impertinence) we were barrelling down the Bruce Highway towards Townsville. A spectacularly shit name for any town. Townsville. Towntown. Villageville. Placeplace. Give me a break.

Addendum: The opening to the above was written on the road towards Townsville. This is a note from the future, now on Magnetic island: If only the worst thing about that place was it’s name!



This dude was one of many and wasn't as scary as he looks here, mind you I'm not one of the fish he was eyeing so it's easy talk.



There's something really weird and cool about seeing goldfish that aren't in a bowl. Mind you given the open ocean available to them they might as well have been, this little mushroom of coral was pretty much the only place they'd go.


In a vulgar display of power I became upside down for a photo.


However my natural distate for having my picture taken quickly took over.

And the content of subsequent photos deteriorated in quality.


As you can see.